Gun traders oppose Obama's effort

FIREARMS

The National Rifle Association booth at a major gun trade show in Las Vegas expresses a message of defiance.

Photo By Michael Short/Special to the Chronicle

Elvis impersonators walk past a large banner for Arsenal Firearms in the lobby of the convention center. SHOT Show, the world's largest gun show, opened at the Sands Convention Center in Las Vegas, NV on Tuesday January 15th, 2013, where an estimated 60,000 industry enthusiasts are expected to attend.

Photo By Michael Short/Special to the Chronicle

Advertising for military small arms producer Daniel Defense is seen in the form of coffee cups available to attendees. SHOT Show, the world's largest gun show, opened at the Sands Convention Center in Las Vegas, NV on Tuesday January 15th, 2013, where an estimated 60,000 industry enthusiasts are expected to attend.

Photo By Michael Short/Special to the Chronicle

Attendees are seen in front of a large banner advertisement for Arsenal Firearms in the lobby of the convention center. SHOT Show, the world's largest gun show, opened at the Sands Convention Center in Las Vegas, NV on Tuesday January 15th, 2013, where an estimated 60,000 industry enthusiasts are expected to attend.

Photo By Julie Jacobson/Associated Press

A convention attendee looks through a Sig Sauer display case of various guns including a P938 Nightmare 9mm semiautomatic pistol at the 35th annual SHOT Show, Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2013, in Las Vegas. The National Shooting Sports Foundation was focusing its trade show on products and services new to what it calls a $4.1 billion industry, with a nod to a raging national debate over assault weapons. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

Photo By Michael Short/Special to the Chronicle

Empty bullet casings are seen in a display at the Crye Precision booth. SHOT Show, the world's largest gun show, opened at the Sands Convention Center in Las Vegas, NV on Tuesday January 15th, 2013, where an estimated 60,000 industry enthusiasts are expected to attend.

Las Vegas --

President Obama's wide-ranging package for curbing firearms violence, highlighted by proposals to ban assault weapons and high-capacity gun magazines, was met with a mix of anger and grudging support at the world's largest gun trade show Wednesday.

But mostly, it was anger.

"All the law-abiding gun owners paid a price today for what happened in Newtown," said Jeff Cahill of Tucson, owner of Tango Down, which makes components for assault weapons, including magazines that can hold as many as 30 rounds.

"Everything he wants to do is focused on limiting the rights of law-abiding gun owners," Cahill said, "and nothing is focused on stopping criminals."

Cahill's sentiments were echoed throughout the Sands Expo and Convention Center in Las Vegas, where an estimated 60,000 people have gathered this week to sell and purchase guns and related items at the Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade Show. The four-day event is hosted by the National Shooting Sports Foundation of Newtown, Conn., where 20 schoolchildren and seven adults were killed last month by a man with an assault weapon.

Some support

On Wednesday, Obama asked Congress to ban assault weapons and ammunition magazines that carry more than 10 rounds, and to require background checks for purchasers in nearly all gun transactions.

Many conventioneers applauded the idea of closing the "gun show loophole," under which people who aren't buying from a federally licensed dealer don't have to go through an FBI background check for disqualifying criminal offenses or mental illness.

In many states, including Nevada, individuals can legally sell a firearm to another resident at a gun show for cash without exchanging paperwork or conducting a background check. According to gun-control proponents and law officials, the practice makes it easy for criminals to purchase guns and bring them into other states.

"Nobody here wants people who shouldn't have guns to get them," said John Gross of New Berlin, Wis., owner of American Defense Manufacturing, which makes accessories for assault weapons. "Gun checks are good; only people who can legitimately own them should own guns."

Alerting authorities

Chappell Harris of Charlotte, N.C., who makes fabrics that cover bullet-resistant vests, said he also supported Obama's declaration that nothing in health-privacy laws prevents mental health professionals from alerting authorities about patients who may be violent threats. The president said the Department of Health and Human Services was sending a letter to health care providers saying as much.

And that was where support for Obama's plan stopped, among retailers of weapons that would be outlawed if Congress approved the major elements of the president's package.

Cahill said he didn't think there was much chance Congress would go along, but that even the renewed talk of gun control had prompted a run on semiautomatic rifles and magazines that can hold scores of rounds.

After the Newtown killings, Cahill said, his business "exploded." One of his employees estimated that Tango Down sold two months' of inventory in the 48 hours after the massacre.

"If these bans go into effect, it'll be just like Prohibition," Cahill predicted. "The bad guys will get rich, and the scale of crime will only go up."

A number of conventioneers watched Obama's nationally televised announcement as the second day of the event was beginning. "Impeach him now," one attendee yelled at a screen in the Cafe Presse in the Venetian Hotel, near the gun-show convention hall.

"He's not a king," another conventioneer said. "He's done it this time."

Suspicious timing

One seller expressed resentment that the Obama administration had made gun control a high priority only after tragedy struck a largely middle-class, white community.

Morris Peterson, president and CEO of Ashbury Precision Ordnance in Charlottesville, Va., described himself as one of "the few black gun manufacturers in the U.S." Peterson grew up in Cleveland and now makes tactical rifles that Obama is seeking to outlaw.

"When it gets outside the inner city, it suddenly becomes 'America's problem,' " Peterson said. "Do ethnic minorities deserve protection just as Middle America does? Why hasn't this become an issue until now? It seems there are societal ills we need to address first."